Two days before U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was fired, President Donald Trump tried to call the high-profile New York prosecutor in what a White House official said was an effort to “thank him for his service and to wish him good luck.”

But a U.S. law enforcement official said Bharara declined to take the call, placed on Thursday, saying he did not want to talk to the president without the approval of his superiors.

Bharara said on Saturday he had been fired after he defied a request to resign. The move was a surprise because Bharara had told reporters in November that Trump had asked him to remain in the job.

As the chief federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, Bharara oversaw several notable corruption and white-collar criminal cases, as well as prosecutions of terrorism suspects.

He was one of 46 Obama administration holdovers who were asked to resign by the Justice Department on Friday.